The Incredible Hulk immediately informs us it's been 158 "days without incident" for Edward Norton's beastly alter ego, a revelation that elicits primal grunts from the savage reviewer.

A day without incident in a superhero movie is a day without bent metal, and that can't be good. Is this going to be like Ang Lee's 2003 monstrosity Hulk, which was all angst and little action?

Happily, director Louis Leterrier (The Transporter) gets back to comic-book basics, delivering enough chases and smackdowns with its all-new cast to satisfy many a fanboy, despite some humdrum CGI work.

Unhappily, the lack of character shading suggests Marvel Studios went too far in distancing itself from Lee's much-reviled predecessor. Could a better balance between brawn and brains not have been struck?

Reports of Norton's attempts to meddle with Zak Penn's script ring true, given the actor's predilection for deep and moody roles. It's also evident that Norton largely failed in his quest to add some intellectual and emotional weight to his green-skinned heavy. This Hulk ain't got no bulk.

The movie retells the origin story on the fly, but it's familiar to anyone who ever read the comic, saw Lee's movie or watched the 1978-82 TV series.

Norton's nutty scientist Bruce Banner bombarded himself with gamma rays that unleashed the bilious beast within. Hunted by the U.S. Army, in the person of cigar-chomping General "Thunderbolt" Ross (William Hurt), Banner does what any sensible radioactive fugitive would do: he hides in a Brazilian slum and gets a job bottling lime-green soda pop.

In-between work shifts, Banner keeps busy in his makeshift lab trying to figure out how to separate the Hulk's DNA from his own.

He maintains a clandestine computer relationship, using the devilishly clever screen name "Mr. Green," with a distant egghead named Mr. Blue (Tim Blake Nelson) who promises to aid him in his quest.

(Blue provides a convenient excuse to relocate the action to North America, with Toronto once again masquerading as U.S. locales.)

Banner also pines for his lost love, a cellular biologist named Dr. Betty Ross (Liv Tyler), who looks like she's not really a scientist but just plays one in the movies.

Why Banner and Ross ever got together is hard to fathom, since there's more chemistry happening on one of their microscope slides than in their coupling. But she's the daughter of Thunderbolt Ross, and that's a real passion killer right there.

So far, so poignant, but the main problem is our Hulky hero's lack of green cojones.

He only emerges from Banner's bod when the host gets excited, which Banner does everything he can to avoid – and that includes going anywhere past first base on date night.

Fortunately, the script presents another character who is happy to fill Hulk's size-37 shoes. He's career soldier Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), a zap off the ol' Thunderbolt, who makes up for his physical shortcomings with outsized ambitions.

Blonsky wants to be a super soldier, so he volunteers to be jacked full of the same gamma rays that turned Banner into "a whole new level of weird." He calls his new beast The Abomination because Hulk Hogan was already taken.

You might guess that the "days without incident" counter is going back to zero, and it will all be set to Craig Armstrong's stentorian score. But instead of grandly naming this picture The Incredible Hulk, it should more truthfully have been called The Adequate Hulk.

While superior to its cerebral predecessor – give me "Hulk, smash!" any day over "I Hulk, therefore I am," – the movie is at best a tasty snack rather than a satisfying meal.

Urban geographers and funk enthusiasts will delight at the climactic showdown on Toronto's Yonge St., which magically places Harlem's famed Apollo Theatre just two doors down from dearly departed Sam the Record Man's, and right near The Big Slice pizzeria and the Zanzibar Tavern.

Has the world suddenly gotten smaller, or just a little less real? Sadly, it's the latter, and you'll really notice the fakery in the monster department. The characters of both Hulk and the Abomination look like oversized plastic action figures, a poor substitute for the good actors they hide, Norton and Roth.

But at least they're engaged in some serious "incidents," to use the movie's poncey euphemism.

The Incredible Hulk, finally, is just like Toronto's road maintenance crews: if all else fails in getting people's attention, just rip up Yonge St.

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